NARA FOIA Regulations
When an agency physically transfers its records to a NARA-operated Federal Records Center (or any other records center), the agency retains legal ownership of those records, including responding to FOIA and other access requests, until the records are either legally transferred into the National Archives as permanent records, or are destroyed as temporary records in accordance with a NARA-approved records disposition schedule. 36 CFR 1250.8
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Records Management
“Preliminary Inventory” (PI), is normally compiled when a particular group of records is transferred from the parent agency/department to NARA. The PI is used to create the “Master Location Register” (MLR)
The MLR provides the specific location of the records by the stack, row, shelf, and compartment. For certain records, the PI’s will not only tell you which box a particular set of records is in but in some cases will have one-sentence descriptions of the various contents.
Individual agencies are the legal owners of records stored at FRCs. The FRC staff are not going to answer FOIA requests for those records and instead refer you back to the agency in question (it’s a different matter if the record is permanent and has been transferred to the National Archives – now NARA owns it). A FOIA request should include a statement asking that the Agency conduct a search for responsive records stored at off-site facilities including FRC locations in your request.
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